Meet the Team

The Chuffed.org Team and Friends

The Team

Prashan Paramanathan

CEO

Prashan dreams about a world where the smartest kids in school choose to join non-profits and social enterprises instead of management consulting and law firms. He tried being a management consultant for a while, but ran off to start micro finance banks with the World Bank Group for rural farmers in China before living and breathing the Australian non-profit sector for the last four years.

David has worked in a number of roles within the web development space. From an all-rounder role at Create Studios, to a more front-end focused role at Adrenalin working with some of Australia's most recognised not-for-profits. He's most recently worked at recruitment marketplace Search Party, focusing on product improvements and feature builds. He hopes to bring his passion for refining the user experience to Chuffed for both campaign creators and campaign supporters alike.

Carl wants to see a world where everybody wants to make a difference in society. He believes that there’s room to integrate social action directly into our culture, whilst also making it fun! After completing a Media Studies degree, he started searching for ways to see how he could help others with his newfound skills. He has spent over 3 years working in the charity sector before joining Chuffed. Carl also jointly runs a YouTube channel / Facebook Page called “Caruzmatic”, which aims to show people how they can get involved in social action.

Jacqui is a human centred designer who enjoys connecting with people and learning their story. After doing some IDEO courses she realised that finding the ‘why’ behind the problem is where she wanted to focus her skills. Previously she spent some time running her own business focusing on clients in the education and environment space. Before that she honed her craft in Graphic Design working for ad agencies and boutique design studios in Sydney and Melbourne. Now she is excited to help enable Chuffed deliver delightful experiences to its users. On the side she runs monthly lean coffee sessions to help startups focus on purpose before profit.

Mel is curious about what makes people tick and loves supporting them to make their ideas happen. As a trained social researcher she's traversed the globe working in sustainable agriculture, new migrant support, stakeholder and community engagement and social change program evaluation. She saw firsthand the power strong communities have in individual success while working as one of the Youth Food Movement's first chapter leaders and running leadership and outreach programs at the University of Technology Sydney. She's looking forward to helping the Chuffed community of practice grow.

Simon is a software engineer with experience in both the startup and agency worlds. Working in web and software at various levels for over a decade, he has developed a keen eye for detail, covering systems from before the first line of code. Most recently, he has worked with startup property sales platform Invex, working collaboratively to build a complex, smart, and scalable application. Joining Chuffed, he hopes to combine his skills to help the platform continue to be a smooth experience for the rapidly growing community.

After spending a number of years working in the corporate world, Jennie took a
leap of faith and left her marketing job to launch her own business and test out
her entrepreneurial skills. After successfully establishing an eco friendly
fashion label with stockists around the world, she took the next step in her
career by joining Etsy, as one of its first Australian employees. While at Etsy,
Jennie developed a passion for supporting female entrepreneurs and learned first
hand about the incredible power of community. Now Jennie is joining Chuffed to
help propel their growth internationally and support campaigners from all over
the globe to make a difference to the causes they are passionate about.

Janaya’s passion for changing the world began during her time at Monmouth
University. She was a campus activist who was always looking for ways to
challenge the status quo. After graduating with a degree in political science
in May of 2017, Janaya spent time working a series of odd jobs before
relocating to Philadelphia. After moving, she worked in the legal field and
became heavily involved with the political organizing groups The Philadelphia
Tenants Union and Philly Socialists. Now, as a team member at Chuffed Janaya
hopes she can make a difference here by helping people become connected to
causes they care about.